> We are in the accretion disk,
> spinning towards the event horizon
> of technologies that are everywhere and nowhere,
> individual and synoptic

I like to work actively with metaphors, to try them out and see where they can take us conceptually. Gravitational force is my current probe for musing about the technologies gestured at by 'AI'. Gravity is a strange force: all pervasive, it structures space around us, propels and limits motion, kicks off choreographies but drags us ever towards the centre of the earth. And yet - we have no organs of gravity: our sense of it is spread through the body, the hang of our guts, the pressure in our feet, the resistance in our muscles[^1].

When I say we are in an accretion disk, we are in the pull of a great black hole, a technological intensification that draws attention, energy and light itself towards that direction. I do not use black hole pejoratively: it is a critical mass, that changes the shape of the space it occupies. Some follow the curve down through the event horizon to the space where matter becomes mutable and time loses meaning; others follow the centripetal pull and fly away at relativistic velocities.

I find the terrain of curved spacetime terrain a useful thinking tool, as we can ask what distorts it, what dimples the rubber sheet of our creative, cultural energy? There are minor singularities out there, that warp our attentional vectors. The text box is a key one: the power and flexibility of natural language processing gives us so much: a sense of reasoning and discourse, a poached and potted version of a great swathe of written culture, words that may comfort and soothe. Because of this, it's easy to forget what is lost: rhythm, gesture, spatial form, the pauses in between, the eyeblink subtleties. Surface glamour is another: creating shine and sparkle was a mark of professionalism, now it is a promise of every interaction. By making everything effortlessly smooth, we miss the strange and lumpen, the construction marks on the prototypes, the idiosyncratic and the marginal. These are two strange attractors, and there are certainly more. The point is not to say that they are 'wrong' - natural language is a wonderful thing, even if textboxes miss typographic and spatial flair; the connection between presentation and content was never consistent[^2]. If shininess is no longer the preserve of expertise, does that not mean we have to look deeper at quality? The point of noticing these things is to ask ask what else is there? What happens in the spaces in between? What does it mean to design when so much can be automated? The synoptic tension remains - accepting the models version of reality in exchange for fluid exploration in that mediated space; vibecoding offers the possibility to design the most personalised software imaginable, as single prompts create applications – but the shaping and control of that process is more concentrated than ever[^3].

Gravity is not evil - although the actions of the hegemonic AI producers seem to be. Gravity may pull us down, but without it we would have no atmosphere, no weather, no fire. We struggle against gravity - to push ourselves up and walk, and jump. We can only think of flying because we push against gravity. So too, with creativity: to find new spaces, new relations, new productions and understandings, we struggle against the cultural and technological gravities that surround us.

[^1] Gibson (1966), but also Steve Paxton's fantastic little book "Gravity"
[^2] For instance, the debate about AI assisted writing needs to include the people trying to write in second or third languages where it is hard for the prose to match the conceptual flight, support for neurodiversities that challenge linear coding of thought, and the effect of background on text production.
[^3] Ian Bogost muses on this: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/10/ai-programming-big-tech-regulations/688960/, and we discuss the epistemic crisis of mediated meaning in a forthcoming article: Murray-Rust, D., & Giaccardi, E. (Nov 2026). Interfacing in Crisis: Five Parables for Interface Thinking. Design Issues.